Second Inversion hosts share a favorite selection from their playlist. Tune in on Friday, March 17 to hear these pieces and lots of other great new and unusual music from all corners of the classical genre!
Julia Wolfe: Cruel Sister; Ensemble Resonanz
Sibling rivalry takes on a whole new meaning in Julia Wolfe’s Cruel Sister for string orchestra. Based on an old English ballad of the same name, the piece tells the tale of two sisters: one bright as the sun, and the other cold and dark. When a young man comes courting, the dark sister pushes the bright sister into the sea so that she can marry him. But when two minstrels find the dead sister washed up on the shore, they create a harp from her breastbone, strung with her yellow hair—and they play the ghostly instrument at the dark sister’s wedding.
Wolfe tells the tale with no words, instead following the dramatic arc of the original ballad through orchestra alone. Restless strings detail the gruesome murder, airy resonances evoke the lifeless body floating on the sea, and an obsessive, foreboding pizzicato waltz brings the music of the mad harp back to life. – Maggie Molloy
Piazzolla: Adiós Nonino arr. Déjardin; Boston Cello Quartet
I couldn’t be happier that this amazing little piece cropped up in my playlist. I like a good Piazzolla tango once in a while, and Adiós Nonino is a very special one. It’s a somber, lyrical work, one that was intensely personal for Piazzolla, written after the death of his father. He said:
“And to close that very bad year of 1959, one day the phone exploded like an atom bomb. I was performing with (Juan Carlos) Copes in Puerto Rico…when I received a call from Dedé (his wife)…from New York. Nonino had died in Mar del Plata. It was too much.
“When I got back to New York a few days later, I asked to be alone in a room in the apartment, and in less than an hour I wrote Adiós Nonino. And then I cried as I had few times before in my life…In that piece I left all the memories I had of my dad.”
It’s some of his most soulful music, and it was arranged in something like 20 different ways during his life. In this version, the Boston Cello Quartet adds a beautifully dark, expressive sound, with an ending that is incredibly intimate. This new-era version of Adiós does not disappoint. – Geoffrey Larson
Olga Bell: Khabarovsk Krai
Musician Olga Bell was born in Russia, raised in Alaska, and now lives in New York as a member of the Dirty Projectors. On her solo album Krai (meaning “periphery”/”edge”), she explores the forgotten areas of her homeland in her native Russian, combining old folk fables with fresh, trance-y electronic sounds. In “Khabarovsk Krai,” crafty use of pitch-shifting software allows Bell’s vocals to sink, swoop, moan, and smear her voice inside your ears as she sobs “Russia, Mother Russia, Russian Motherland.” Much like the landscape that inspired the work, the song shifts constantly and is full of striking, unusual surprises. – Rachele Hales
I’ve always been a fan of the contemporary Icelandic label Bedroom Community, which seems to produce a steady stream of magic in its new music offerings. Processions is the debut album of Daníel Bjarnason, and it holds some musical treasures. One is the final track, Skelja, a work for harp and what seems to be a small collection of pitched gongs. The percussion adds a drowsy color to the spare notes of the harp solo, a faint background of dark hues. This is a tender harp work that truly has something to say, and I enjoy listening to it again and again. – Geoffrey Larson
This 2.5 minute gem makes me long for winter, even as milder temperatures and cherry blossoms are among us. If I dare say, the Portland Cello Project puts even MORE warmth into this soothing, soulful tune than the original version by the Fleet Foxes. Trumpeter John Whaley soars effortlessly above the cellos with the melody, drifting in and out with ease. I might just have to seek out a trail that still has some snow on it this weekend…. – Maggie Stapleton
